“What did I tell you about leaving the stove on?” Ma switched off the dial with a mean flick of her hand.

“It wasn’t on.”

“Was too, I can feel the heat pourin’ off it,” she held her hand six inches from the coil, staring down her nose at Dottie. And Dottie knew that look. That look nailed your feet to the floor, burning you in a cold sweat. That look was justice and trouble.

“Ma, I swear, it wasn’t on.”

“Little girl, don’t you think I can tell when the stove is on or not?” She wrung her hands together, wiping off the heat. One at a time she twisted every dial, on and off, on and off, just for making sure.

Dottie had watched the ritual of dials a thousand on a thousand times. Always before they left the house, or even when they left the room, the stove was checked, checked, checked. None of the other mothers do that. They didn’t have a reason to.

Ma had been eleven or twelve when it happened. There was no being sure on details because Daddy had been the one to tell the story, and he had only heard it second hand himself. Ma never once said a word, but then Dottie never heard anybody ask her. And no way was she going to.

A man had moved into the house with very little explanation. Ma and her sister had only been told to call him their uncle. He was there to help, see? To be their protector and guardian, a regular member of the family. But everybody knew he wasn’t. He was a slippery, wily thing that wound his way into their home. And once there, became a monster.

Here the story goes real quiet.

Officially, some grease had got onto the coils. There was bad wiring. Some careless towel was left unattended by the stove and something just – poof! Such bad luck, they all guessed. Such a miracle the girls, at least, survived. Daddy never quite said it, but then he didn’t need to. Dottie knew it had been Ma.

“You left it on again,” Ma said, her eyes still hard on Dottie, “What did I tell you about leaving it on?”

“The stove was off, Ma, it’s always off,” Dottie rose from the kitchen chair, “We disconnected it two years ago.”

The old woman looked at the stove confused. For all her secret, violet history, for all her survivor’s strength, she had become something fragile nonetheless. She held her hand above the coils with a whimper.

Dottie stood over her mother, drawing her hands away from the range. She was a head taller, with an inherited the frame, cradling her mother like a child. They stood looking at one another, like mirror images on either side of thirty years. But Ma was walking away. Somewhere, inside this smaller, older body. She was walking away.

“Remember?” Dottie said, “It was making you so upset all the time. So we turned it off for good.”

“Mmm,” Ma hummed, the sound coming up from the deep places in her memory, “That’s good. We don’t need nothin’ burnin’ anymore.”

In the center of the garden is a fountain. It’s a low, shallow affair with a center column shaped into pretty sculptures of pudgy children – no doubt an imitation of older pretty sculptures of other pudgy children. But unlike the original, wherever it may be, this one made of highly engineered fibers. It is made intentionally old.

A little boy in knee-high trousers stands with his nose pressed to the rim. He has little concern for his Sunday best as he fishes out a penny from the basin. He throws it in, digs it out, throws it in. Cathy watched from her place by the door, wondering if he made the same wish every time. Given the heat of the day it was probably ice cream. Or a pony. Or one of the slick noisy trinkets advertised between cartoons. What is it that little boys wish for?

The slow parade of guests shuffled into the church. Cathy greeted them all in turn, though most were perfect strangers. All the while she watched the boy. He kept at his game, uninhibited, the edges of his rolled-up sleeves soaking through. Cathy tried to think if she had seen him with any guardian, but she couldn’t recall one. The boy had simply appeared in her line of view, devoid of any context. She shook hands with an elderly couple. Wasn’t the weather fine for the occasion? Couldn’t ask a better day to hold a wedding.

What would I wish for over and over again? Cathy shooed away a puff of bumblebee. The thought was like a riddle with a million good answers, but none of them right. In goes the penny, and out it comes. In and out, in and out. Guests ushered in, music drifts out. What is it I would wish for?

Money seemed beneath her. Happiness, too vague. World peace – but what does that mean? AC felt like wasting a wish. The boy was studious in his splashing, performing the serious task of his own making. Nothing else caught his attention. He caught the attention of nothing else. Cathy wondered if anyone else even noticed the boy. It was starting in five minutes, surely he should be collected and put into a seat.

I wish I would have said something – it struck her all at once. The truth of it was undeniable. Cathy hid her blush by pretending to adjust the itching fabric at her waist. It was useless, that kind of wish. Too much time and other talking, then too many miles and now this. This beautiful reminder by unsuspecting friends. Let’s be friends. Let’s always be friends. I wish I would have –

The boy was gone. The water in the fountain stood alone gurgling indifferently. Cathy looked around. Had he gone inside? I didn’t see him.

Cathy? someone called, we’re starting.

Cathy went inside and took her place among the party. I wish, I wish, I wish.

—–

The image is from Wiki Commons. “Bunch of flowers with daffodils (Narcissus pseudonarcissus), France.” Public domain image.

He had ink on his hands. I remember the way it crept through the grooves of his skin. The roots of weeds. It was just small spots, but unmistakable. And a loose-wrinkled shirt. Yellow or faded or not. It was a long time ago.

The kettle screams on the stove. Tea leaves swirl in the chipped-china pot. An afternoon at home. Jenny asks if she can go play in the garden. Barely twelve. A tomboy. No interest in boys but that’ll come soon enough. Go and play. Ma won’t mind, Granny says it’s ok.

Just like her mother, Jenny. All sports and bare knees. Jarred frogs and adventures. Comes from somewhere, I guess, but not me. I was never. But maybe that would have been better.

He would ask me where things were. In my first real job as a library clerk I was full of poorly trained self-importance. Had I been a little wiser, I would have realized he wasn’t actually trying to find anything. He just enjoyed watching me bumble about, earnestly chasing wild geese. A game of obscure titles and fictional subjects. Or flirting.

Jeremy the cat jumps up on the table. Strutting about, poking his head into cups. He adopted himself into the family three years ago. As if we had any say in the matter. I just wish he wasn’t naked. Perhaps I’ll knit him a sweater. Perhaps I’ll learn to knit. For now I’ll just pet his bald little head. An elderly man-cat. Two old farts and tea.

He plucked a gray hair from my head once. I was nineteen. Came right up and pulled the strand straight out of my head. I must have blushed pools of blood. Wide eyed and incapable of saying anything. He just laughed and walked away. So damn clever. Sent me into a panic. I spent the evening glued to the mirror, looking for the first shoots of an old hag. Silly girl.

I let the tea sit too long, it’s gone all bitter. Never mind, milk and sugar. Jenny giggles in the yard. To be so young. And always in a hurry to grow up. Like her mother. Like me. Not my favorite legacy.

Coming from a town too small for maps, a graduate student seemed like a wildly exotic creature. Irrevocably tied to visions of bohemian genius. And my impressions were knowingly reinforced. He was wit and mischief hung on bones. I did everything I could to make myself appealing. I did everything I could to hide.

I didn’t learn his name until months after we met. Certainly not bold enough to ask, not in those days. I thought he must have an adventuring, romantic name. He didn’t. And he called me all sorts of things. Sweet things. Sugary nicknames and French things I couldn’t understand. I don’t think he ever called me by name. I don’t think he remembered. I don’t think I cared.

Jeremy sprawls out on the table, I rub his belly. Our innumerable wrinkles. He sounds like a motorbike. That went to a party. In someone else’s flat.

A nice cashmere sweater is not always suitable for a party. A calcified square caught in music made for shaking. He introduced me to his friends. Blue haze and bottles. Words I had only read, and mentally mispronounced. I just sipped my drink and smiled. Prayed to God no one would ask me a question. Thrilled just to be there. On the way home he –

Jenny calls from the garden. Touch the phone, talisman. No emergency, just a bird’s nest. That’s wonderful dear. Put it back.

Those days fall together. Fused. Stretched and condensed through time. I was blissfully thoughtless, a fanatic for attentions. And he paid them. Sometimes miserly, sometimes generous. I told all my girlfriends. What a wonderful hero-saint-genius I had. Hours spent listening to drivelsome coffee-jabber and tracing the weeds of ink.

The stains came from a pen. A hand-me-down from someone I pretended to have heard of. A beautiful fountain antique prone to leaking. He was going to change the world and write something brilliant. So I believed and believed. Through reams of paper. Sheets and sheets. And sheets.

My cup has gone cold. The phone rings and jitters. Here in half an hour to pick up Jenny. Lovely. Press twelve different buttons to hang up. My kingdom for a landline.

Three weeks of silence. Months too close, then three weeks. Young eternity. I drove my body to ache, willing the phone to ring. And nothing. And nothing. I call, and nothing. Sleepless, eatless, and bent. Rotten. Dead. Then all the sudden. Come again like nothing happened. I should have been furious, but was elated instead. Joyous mistakes.

When I told him we had a secret, he didn’t react. Just carried on. I repeated myself, thinking he hadn’t heard. He assured me he had. I started in on questions, but got nowhere. A row ignited, storms have less thunder. Terrible, brash things inflated with irrelevancies. Stomps. Strikes to walls and tables.

And the whole thing broke.

A crash. Jenny apologizes, almost sobbing. It’s alright dear, I never really cared for that anyway. She cut her hand, slight as an eyelash. Band-Aids and kisses. Dry your eyes. Granny can fix it. Ma will be here soon.

I gave her. For better chances. Three counties over, I met them once. Good people. I was wretched a long time after.

The door opens. Jeremy scoots to quieter places, Jenny wriggles away. Ma’s here! Looks just like her father. The gawky waiter in a lousy Italian restaurant when we were first introduced. My saving grace. I should bring him flowers tomorrow. Not really a man for flowers. But it’s not like he’ll see them through all that dirt.

Ma greets her girl, me. Jenny clings her waist. On my hand? Nothing. Just ink. I was writing a letter earlier. It creeps through the grooves. The roots of weeds.

This is not where I went to sleep. The air is different. And the light. And I’m sitting in a chair. It’s a good chair. Even if I don’t remember how I came to be sitting in it.

Did I have a cold? I feel remarkably fresh. Like my sinuses have been cleared with steam, and my fingers have bath wrinkles but they’re younger than remembered. Or was I aging in a dream?

And indeed there will be time.*

There are people now. They measure the blood beating at my wrist and ask me if I’m cold. No, but why do you wear masks? My protection. So are you ill, or am I?

‘Welcome Back, Ronald,’ it says upon the wall. Yes, why thank you. Always good to be here. But from where did I come? They only ask what I remember. That’s why I’m asking. No, Ronald, the last thing.

Mary scolding me, I spilled a glass of wine. That shirt is ruined now. The children will visit tomorrow. I’ve put my pajama trousers on backwards. The bedsheets smell of laundry soap.

There will be time.

Does Mary know I’m here? Good. Otherwise she’s prone to worry.

The very very last thing? Why on earth would it matter? Sleeping, I suppose. And waking. And sleeping. And sleeping in the cold.

The masks nod with certain interest. I ask what it’s about. They ask if I remember my funeral arrangements. What absurd… A wake if I was decent. A service with a lunch. No, it was a windowed casket – like a capsule. You see, I’ve arranged for…

Their eyes are looking at me. The masks crinkle with their sympathetic smiles. The cold. Welcome back.

I find it’s all too tempting to fill up my days with “very important” tasks and work work work at every possible moment. Must produce more. Must achieve things. And while I’ll never argue against a healthy ambition, I will note the importance of rest. Of down time. Of the re-charge.

Every now and again, we all need to take a time out. Get away from our projects for a bit to do something totally unrelated. Like go for a walk, see a movie, bake something. Doesn’t matter what it is, as long as it works for you. As counter-intuitive as it sometimes feels, we come back all the fresher…and actually do better. Creativity is a fickle thing.

So if you’ll excuse me, I believe I need to take some tarts out of the oven.